


Finding New Ground

by GelfofOak



Category: Fleabag (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brooding, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:06:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28057344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GelfofOak/pseuds/GelfofOak
Summary: The Priest and Fleabag reconnect in a new way. This work explores them getting to know each other a bit and learning more about their past struggles, and we see where it takes them.
Relationships: Fleabag/Priest (Fleabag)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. Debriefing

“Well? How did things go?” she asked her sister over the phone early Sunday morning, trying to sound chipper in hopes of immersing all her emotions into her sister’s romantic escapades rather than letting them linger internally where they would meet a rapid descent into sadness.  
A pause followed on the other line. First breathless laughter, then Claire finally responded, “We kissed.”  
“Claire!”  
“I was so nervous, I just felt so weird about being in the airport, but he was happy, and you know, he’s a little weird too, so maybe we’re both the right weird.”  
“I knew it. There’s no way that a man who loves you enough to tell you that haircut looked good wouldn’t be ecstatic to see you.”  
“Thanks,” she replied, her voice still shaky with giddiness. “And, well…yourself?”  
“What?”  
“You know what. The priest! What’s happened with him??”  
As she paused to ponder how to respond to Claire’s inquiry, she looked at herself in the bedroom mirror. Her puffy eyelids and bloodshot eyes betrayed a night passed with tears in place of sleep. “No, let’s talk about you! We should focus on your great news!”  
A pause followed on the line. Claire changed tone. “Something bad’s happened, hasn’t it?”  
She took a deep inhale. She was almost too exhausted to feel anything more right now. Too drained. “It’s done,” she replied.  
“Oh. I’m so sorry. You had seemed so excited about it. Was it…because of the God thing?”  
“Yeah, it was because of the God thing. I don’t know why I was surprised; I should’ve known it couldn’t have worked, I just…”  
“Well, do you think maybe things could change?”  
“Christ, I’ve made you an optimist!”  
“Thank you.”  
“Where are you now? You can’t be at your place?”  
“No, I’m actually in Finland! We decided we’d both go since I have to be here Monday anyway for work.”  
“Well, I should let you get back to your little honeymoon then! Now at last you get to go fuck like crazy just like you told him!”  
“Ugh I was mortified that night! Anyway, are you sure you’re going to be okay today?”  
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry, I’ll go for a jog then watch some shit TV, some general self-care.”  
“Ok, good—”  
“—but first I’m headed off to mass.”  
“God, WHAT??”  
She laughed at the reaction of her sister. “I’m joking! I’m not that daft. Anyway, he told me not to go to his church again.”  
“That’s rough.”  
“Yeah.”  
“Well, I’m sure it’s very hard on him, too. Not that I don’t think he didn’t hurt you, but I do know that he sounded like he was about to explode the night he called me asking for your number.”  
That comment conjured up images of them lying in her bed in the morning, then her crying on her bathroom floor that night.  
“He told me it would pass.”  
‘ “It’ll pass”,’ Claire repeated. “That’s awful. I’m sorry.”  
“Well, I hear Martin’s single now, so…”  
“Shut up!”  
“Sorry, waayy too soon.”  
Claire eventually gave in and chuckled. “Maybe you should visit us in Finland soon one of the times I’m there? Or we could meet somewhere halfway? Just to have a change of scenery to get your mind off things.”  
“That would be lovely.”  
“Okay, you think about it.”  
“I will.”  
“I love you.”  
“I love you too.”  
“Bye.”  
“Bye.”

She set her phone down and looked around her flat. She didn’t feel much like having breakfast because her stomach was still in knots. Or was it butterflies? She felt on edge and began tidying up her flat to dull the screaming emotions in her head. Maybe Harry had been onto something all those times with a therapeutic deep cleaning of the flat. She scrubbed her kitchen, then her bathroom, and organized her living room. She even dusted, which hardly ever crossed her mind as something that needed to be done. She saved her bedroom for last. The place where his presence still lingered most. She paused at the doorway, looking at the bed. After a moment, she stormed in, tore off all the sheets and blankets, bunched them up, and carried them over to the washing machine, spilling them quickly in and closing the door. She wanted to get that over with as fast as possible, not giving herself a chance to press them into her face to see if she could still detect his scent. She wasn’t ready for her fresh wounds to be prodded at.  
“It’ll pass,” she sighed to herself, and gave a quick nod. She turned on the washing machine. She wheeled the hoover over to her bedroom and went over the floor 3 times, a symbolic gesture of fully purging this space of memories of the night before last. She had a sudden flash again of images of them in bed, but this time it was of his bare chest pressed up against hers, his groans of pleasure as if she were the only thing in this world, and his hard thrusts while maintaining her in a gentle embrace. She began to smile at these memories and her building arousal, but a shadow of despair and longing interrupted this chain of feelings. Sad and horny, she thought. That’s a terrible combination.  
She looked at the time. It was around noon. She thought about what he would be doing right now. Sunday was a big church day (she at least knew that much), and he was probably finishing up a mass. Wasn’t Sunday when he had a double-header mass? Gosh, why am I even thinking of that? I’m going to need to learn to stop that, she chided herself. Was he a right wreck too? She guiltily hoped so, but then hoped not. God, I care about him so fucking much. She wished someone could be her spy so she could know what state he was in, but everyone in her family who would normally be in attendance at his mass were either on vacation or recently excommunicated from the family. Claire, she had learned, was in Finland (and would no doubt no longer be going to that church). Godmother and her father were at the airport about to board a plane to Barcelona (or “Barthelona,” as her godmother insisted on pronouncing it, she thought with an eye roll). Martin was now out of the picture (thank God). Maybe Jake was there though? I can’t even think how creepy it would be if I tried to call Jake, she thought to herself with a laugh. So no one left to do a welfare check on her priest. Damn.  
It was thankfully time to shift her focus elsewhere-it was almost time to open her café for the afternoon. She had closed it that morning weeks ahead of time in anticipation of needing to recover from the wedding the night before. She had no idea then what she’d be recovering from, though…  
She unlocked her café and looked forward to the mental reprieve from her grieving with the promise of a busy Sunday afternoon of customers to attend to. She had recently hired an assistant named Jess to help cover most weekends, but she was grateful that this was one of the rare weekend days she had assigned herself to work. Throughout the afternoon, she found herself being chattier than usual and excessively animated with customers, likely in an effort to sublimate any further thoughts away from her heartache. She even managed to flirt with a few of her customers, which was merely a distraction that left her feeling emptier after realizing there was only one person on the planet she wanted to share that banter with. The afternoon passed quickly with a steady flow of business. About 10 minutes to 6, just before closing time, she began tidying up behind the counter and storing the food for the day as the last 2 customers had filed out of the café. As she was bent over the sink cleaning the parts of the coffee machine, she heard the door jangle and looked up. The filter apparatus made a loud metal clink as she dropped it into the sink when a figure walked through the door that looked an awful lot like—no, shit, that was—her priest.


	2. Quick Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter with some angst...but we'll work through it!

“No.” she said matter-of-factly.   
“I know, I know.” He said remorsefully. “Can I just…”  
“No,” she again said firmly. “You’re not allowed to keep banning me from your church at bus stops then finding me the next day.”  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, still frozen just inside the door. She noticed his face looked pale and there were dark circles under his eyes. Good. He was also wearing black trousers with a black t-shirt tucked in, but without the button-up shirt or blazer with the collar, like he hadn’t been able to work out whether to go in priest clothes or normal clothes, so settled for somewhere in between.   
She took a deep breath and paused.   
Sensing an opening, the priest continued quickly, “I know you’re angry with me, as you should be.”  
“I’m not. I’m actually not.” She actually wasn’t. She felt the hot tears starting to build at the corners of her eyes. She was mostly angry with herself. She knew that if he had changed his mind again, and said that he wanted her, that he was going to give it up for her, she would say yes. She wouldn’t be able to help herself this time, that’s how much she fucking loved him. And she hated herself for that. “It’s just-if you get to ban me from your place, I’m banning you from here. This is my church. You’re not allowed.”  
He looked calm yet troubled. “I came here to say…”   
She studied him.  
He continued. “I needed to tell you that…I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. It’s okay if you don’t forgive me, but I just needed to say it…to you.”  
She nodded. “Okay. Thank you. Please leave now.” She was getting too close. She needed to protect herself.  
He noticed the tears starting to form in her eyes at her entreaty. He nodded in understanding and backed away toward the door. She quickly turned on her heels to go to the back pantry.   
As he closed the door, he said softly, to himself, “I came to tell you…it’s you.”   
She closed the walk-in pantry door behind her and allowed the tears to freely fall. “I love you,” she whispered.


	3. My Favourite Colour

A month had passed since the café visit from the priest. She regretted kicking him out so quickly. She should have tried to salvage whatever she could, even leave on a peaceful note. A part of her wanted to run to his church and knock on his door since then, church visit moratorium be damned, but she restrained herself. Instead, she had been just taking each day an hour, a minute, a second at a time, focusing on cradling the broken pieces to craft them into a stronger version of herself.  
As part of that mission, she had returned to going for runs through one of her old favorite places, the graveyard where her mum was. On her first run there, she remembered why she had loved running there. When everything in her life was going mad, she found peace in being reminded that all of us humans on this planet will meet the same fate, no matter how much we run from it. It put all of her problems into perspective, and she found inspiration in that.  
One cool weekday morning before she had to open up the café, she stood in a patch of dew-soaked grass next to one of the graveyard paths while she put in her ear buds and picked one of her “happy” playlists on her phone. She began at a jog, and within a few minutes had become fully immersed in the current song “Sober Up” by AJR. She couldn’t help singing along with the catchy chorus, and as she softly sang “my favourite colour is you” to herself, feeling fairly confident she was alone, she saw a running figure suddenly appear to her left on a converging path. He appeared similarly lost in thought, and she jumped in surprise and froze to allow him to go past.  
“Sorry!” he exclaimed, also stopping abruptly.  
“It’s okay--- Oh my gosh. Hi—” It was him. Of course it was. She understood how it had been for him that night at the church when he had been surprised to see her. He was just in her head then, and now he was there. Like she had summoned him from the intensity of her thoughts. But then again he was always in her thoughts, so that was nothing new.  
He had a cautious look on his face, but gave her a friendly smile.  
“Erm,” she started, “I should apologize for being an arsehole to you in my café. Again. Seems to be a habit of mine to be a prick to you in there.” She gave a charming smile accented with nervous laughter.  
“Please don’t,” he replied. “It was selfish of me to come.”  
“Well,” she replied, “lucky we both get to apologize in this…graveyard?”  
“Yes,” he said, “I thought I was the only one morbid enough to like being reminded of death.”  
“I find it peaceful here too,” she replied. She should have remembered. He’d said he liked funerals.  
A mischievous smile spread on his face. “So maybe someone does like thinking of the next life, as much as they try to resist it.”  
She laughed. “Well, it does make my problems seem not as big.”  
He continued, looking around, “Do you ever wonder what all these people’s stories were? Sometimes I wish I knew. So they’re remembered.”  
“I know one of theirs,” she replied. “An exuberant artist with a beautiful soul who taught art to others. She died of breast cancer.”  
He looked at her, studying her face. “Your mother.”  
She looked up. “Yes.”  
“Could we, can we…visit her?”  
She smiled and nodded. “Sure. She’d like that.”  
Both completely abandoning any previous plans of continuing their run, they walked side by side as she led him to her mother’s grave.  
They approached a simple gravestone surrounded by moss and tangled ivy. A bouquet of artificial white flowers adorned the middle of the stone.  
“Here she is,” she said.  
They both stood in silence for a few seconds, standing side by side, shoulders touching. Just their breaths filled the crisp air for those moments. All was silent except for the occasional drops of dew that fell from the blossoms on a chestnut tree branch that hung over them.  
She started. “Hi, mum. I know this isn’t one of the times I usually visit, so I hope I didn’t catch you while you were busy. Someone wanted to say hi. I know, before you say anything, I know he’s a priest, but don’t worry, I haven’t found religion. Still the same heathen you brought up.” The priest stifled a laugh at this. “But don’t worry”. She paused. “He’s the best person I know.”  
She turned to look at him after saying this, tears welling up in her eyes. He looked at her, also fighting back tears. She turned back to her mum’s grave.  
“Love you, mum,” she said. As they stood, the priest took hold of her hand, and they stood in silence.  
The priest turned to her and said softly, “You won’t forget her.”  
She wiped her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, turning to him. He dropped his hand from hers, and they leaned into an embrace. She let herself enjoy the hug between the two of them, then she pulled back.  
He smiled at her then looked troubled for a moment. “That’s what I should have done that time—” he trailed off. “Thank you for letting me visit her.”  
“Of course. She would have liked you. Just a shame you didn’t swear more in front of her!”  
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Margaret!”  
They both laughed.  
“You know,” she said, “you’re quite good at your job. I see it.”  
“Thank you,” he said, sincerely.  
“Even just in running clothes.”  
“Well, looks like we both got quite sidetracked on our run,” he said, her comment having reminded him of his initial intention.  
“Do you want to finish…together?” She suggested. She felt they had already made an event out of the graveyard and they may as well continue together.  
“Yeah, yeah, that’d be nice to have company,” he replied.  
“Okay, race you to that lamppost!” She exclaimed, taking off right as she said it. Something about thinking about her mum made her feel spontaneous and playful, like she was a younger version of herself.  
He sprinted after her, catching up to the back of her just before the lamppost and throwing his arms around the front of her in a mock tackle.  
She shrieked with amusement and attempted to keep running while he held her to him. “Fine, tie!” she exclaimed, and he slowly unwrapped his arms from around her. They stood, looking at each other, panting and laughing.  
They eventually switched their focus to more practical matters and decided on the loop they were going to run. Both worried they had let their guard down with the flirty race, and they intentionally kept the conversation light. Both were aware of the threat of fresh wounds and feelings hiding dangerously close to the surface, and they carefully tiptoed around upsetting any of the delicate balance they seemed to have found this morning. So she told him about the café, how helpful her new assistant had been, and about her dad and godmother’s trip to Barcelona. She was careful not to mention Claire and her running-through-the-airport antics to Finland for fear it would bring up discussion of the events of the wedding day.  
They continued their conversation as they neared the end of their run. He told her stories of quirky parishioners, current sermon topics, and Pam’s antics.  
“So we have a recent acquisition at the rectory-Pam’s just adopted a cat!”  
“A cat, wow, so now extra insurance that I really do stay away!”  
He laughed. “What, you are anti-cat?”  
“No, not strictly, it’s just that Hilary is, and especially Hilary’s hamster cousin, Stephanie!”  
“You have a hamster now, too! How could you not tell me something like that?!” he joked.  
They came to the end of their run, both checking their phones.  
“Do you have to go work at the café?” he asked.  
“Yes, I do. What do you have to do today?” she asked.  
“Just prepare some sermons, take some confessions, and I have to prepare for a baptism this weekend.”  
She laughed. “Oh my God, I would pay so much money to watch you actually have to interact with a baby in front of loads of people!”  
He laughed too. “Well, they mostly just cry, so really you’re just trying to get through it as fast as possible!”  
“I mean, I’d cry too, knowing my soul was being given away without my consent.”  
He laughed. “That’s not exactly---"  
“I’m joking. Why wouldn’t someone want to have water thrown all over them by you?” Whoops. Maybe a bit much, she thought.  
They laughed again. They paused.  
He then continued, “Do you want to run together again sometime?” he asked.  
“Oh. Sure. I was thinking of going again Friday morning, would that work…?” She replied.  
“Yeah, Friday morning, this same time?” he asked.  
“Yes, meet right here?” She asked  
“Yes, sounds good,” he said. “Until then.”  
“Until then,” she replied.  
They both turned around to walk off in opposite directions.  
After a step, he turned back, and said, “Oh, and I love that song too.”  
“What?” she asked, shaken out of her thoughts.  
“The one you were singing. I don’t know the actual title, but I just call it “My favourite colour is you” because I love singing that bit.


	4. Doing Whatever This Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Priest and Flea share a bit about their childhoods.

Their runs together a few times a week became a regular occurrence. They had found a rhythm of easily falling into conversation topics at the start of their run. Conversation flowed easier and easier each time, and ranged from playful debates about movies or TV shows, to the weather, and to funny things that had happened to them during the week. And occasionally these lighter topics led to more personal revelations that they delved into.  
It was around Halloween, which led them to reminisce about past Halloweens.   
“What was your favourite costume growing up?” he asked her.   
She laughed. “Erm, well, I think it was probably when I was 5 when I wanted to be a very specific character from a book I had, which I’m sure my parents were thrilled by,” she said, rolling her eyes.   
“It was this girl from a book who could travel to different worlds, or through time, maybe, using the telephone in her house. She goes to all these places and gets to be like, a princess, then a knight, then an alligator, but I specifically wanted to be the girl in the normal world and wear these shorts overalls with pinstripes on them and carry a phone around. My mum couldn’t find the shorts overalls anywhere since it was October, so she actually sewed me some! She was a saint and I was such a dick. But I cherished that costume and wore it as often as I could.”  
“Wow, a child who knew exactly what they wanted!” he remarked  
“I know! Don’t you wish you could have that degree of certainty about anything now!?” she asked rhetorically.  
“Yeah,” he replied. “I think my favourite was when I was 8. No tailoring work required like yours, but it was also something I was really into. I really wanted to be a spy. Like I would go around the neighborhood with a journal and write down all of the things the neighbors were doing. It was always really mundane stuff, like mowing the grass or walking the dog, but I thought it was so cool. Anyway, I found a coat of my dad’s that went down to my ankles-actually probably dragged on the ground-along with a hat. And I would act really sly when I asked for candy. The funniest thing though, is that my brother told me that spies got killed if they were caught, which I completely didn’t understand. I thought that somehow they were helping the country that they were spying on.”  
“That’s adorable!” she exclaimed. “The workings of international espionage are probably not within the mental grasp of a young child.”   
He continued to reflect. “That was probably one of my only Halloween costumes.”  
“What, did your parents not celebrate Halloween?”  
“No, it’s not that, it was like they…lost interest. There were loads of pictures of my brother, who is 5 years older than me, in different costumes on Halloween, but it was like, after him, they couldn’t be bothered. So on Halloween I’d go out with the neighbours to get candy, and would usually have to be creative with clothes around the house for costumes. One time I was the kid from E.T. Stuff like that. Then when I’d come home, I’d give my parents a handful of my favourite candies in hopes that that would convince them to celebrate Halloween with me the next year. Not realizing that wasn’t the problem.”  
She felt like her heart was about to swell out of her chest. “I’m so sorry, that must’ve been so hard, especially when you didn’t understand.”  
“It’s okay, I got to make friends with the neighbours, so it wasn’t all so bad.”  
“Well, if it would help, I could help you celebrate Halloween this year!” She quickly added, “I mean, work in something fun to our next run.” She didn’t want to sound like she was asking him to spend time with her outside of their runs. She didn’t want to endanger whatever this was that they were doing.   
He laughed. “It’s okay, luckily now as an adult and a priest Halloween doesn’t really hold that big of a part anymore.”  
“I know. It’s just easier than what I really want to do, which would be fly to Dublin just to find them and demand justice for little you.”  
“That’s kind of you. I don’t know who I’d be more scared for, them or you,” he said, laughing.  
“Were other holidays like that?” she continued, more seriously.  
“It kind of depended. That was the problem, they were unpredictable. You never really knew. Sometimes they’d be really enthused about things, then sometimes they’d just, forget, and not really explain why.”  
“When did you first know about the alcohol?”  
“Erm, I think when I was around 12. When I knew more what it was from movies and kids at school. But it wasn’t like in the movies, where the dad sits in a chair in front of the TV and yells at the kids to bring him more beers. It was more subtle. I’d always thought that my mum was just really moody, and that sometimes my parents fought really loud about stupid stuff, and that sometimes they’d forget to pick me up from school or sports. Things that seem close to normal are hard to pick up on.”  
“What about your brother? Was he close with you?”  
“When we were really little, yes. But as soon as he became a teenager, he was always off with his friends, then right when he finished school he moved out. So it was just me and my parents, and when I became a teenager it became a bit confusing with my parents. My mum would always want me around, but then when I did spend time with her, she’d alternate between yelling at me and crying. I didn’t really know how to help. It seemed like with her and my dad, they liked the stress and thrill of their work, but at home they were totally different.”  
“That’s really hard to know how to help,” she reflected.  
“Yeah, I think that was one of the reasons I chose the path that I did-to protect myself from being hurt by them anymore. If it was just me and God, that would take them out of the equation. When I entered the priesthood it was like they stopped trying to reach me, stopped calling. No more expectations about visiting for holidays since they figured my life was just the church. Maybe it’s better for them too that way. They’re retired now, stable, from last I heard. Which is the best I can hope for them.”  
She stopped running and he stopped a step ahead of her when he noticed her stop. It was her turn now. She looked at him, and reached out with her right hand and took his hand in his. They stood silent, looking at each other. He moved imperceptibly closer to her and studied her face.   
“Do you miss people, with it being just you and God?” she asked.  
He looked away and thought for a moment. “It’s a bit ironic, even though with this job you’re with people in some way or other every day, you still feel alone. You still feel that wall between them and you. I always saw it as isolating but also protection from their shit.”  
She grasped his hand more firmly and stroked his fingers with her thumb once.  
“People are all we’ve got,” she replied. She shrugged and turned away, letting go of his hand.   
He looked at her, then looked up at the sky.   
He took a deep breath and said, “I’ve really liked this. Talking to you like this.”  
“So have I,” she said.   
They had subconsciously started walking again. They approached the end of their run.   
She started, “You know, I’m kind of a fair-weather runner, and it’s going to start getting a bit too chilly for me in a few weeks, so I might not be coming out to do this as much.”  
He replied, “Yeah, I guess for me, too. “We may have to just suspend them until spring.”  
She nodded. “Yes, until spring.”  
He said, “You were serious about that Halloween thing for our next run, right? ‘Cos I’m coming in costume. You know, to honor my favourite Halloween.”  
She laughed. “Yes, absolutely!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if Halloween for kids in Britain is done quite the same as it is in America, so apologies if I'm way off!

**Author's Note:**

> I am very much an amateur writer and am in a line of work that does not involve using the creative side of my brain, so I've really enjoyed the opportunity to write about these characters from this legendary TV show. I am also a hopeless romantic as you will see in this story.  
> Disclaimer that I am American-I tried to use UK vocab and phrases but I'm sure I still made slip-ups!


End file.
